


Faced

by distractionpie



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Commander Fox Week, Gen, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, single scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: The Commander of the Coruscant Guard cannot drop his defences.Fox never takes his helmet off on duty. Never.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 87





	Faced

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I feel bad about treating clones as interchangeable but Thire did nearly got scrapped in favour of Thorn halfway through this fic because gdocs kept autocorrecting his name to their.

“Sir?”

Thire's address is quick and sharp, even a brother might have missed the hint of rising inflection at the end of his word, were it not for months of working side by side under the constant scrutiny of the senate, where they could not afford to be fully at ease, even in their so-called off hours.

Fox doesn't miss it for a moment. The Guard are rarely exposed to action in the conventional sense, but proximity to the senate presents its own dangers and where there are eyes and ears everywhere it’s vital to be able to tell what is unsaid.

“Commander Thire,” he acknowledges. Doesn’t ask. The leaders of the Coruscant Guard cannot be seen asking, it would be taken as a failure. Fox must know all things at all times, else the reminder that the clones do not have superhuman abilities will see them all marked down as inferior in the eyes of the nat-born security forces.

They fall into step, easy as if they’d come out of the same tube. Thire has been coordinating with the senate staff to accommodate Royal ambassadors from a group of Council of Neutral Systems planets who wish to bring further personal security than what has already been assigned to their senator. It’s the hour for latemeal, both of them are technically due off shift, but the path they’re walking leads to their offices not the barracks. The Guard are the most visible clones, if there’s to be a place for the Vode after the war, they have to be evidence that all of their brothers can contribute value beyond what was paid for them.

Silence is a usual thing between them, there’s no room for informality here. Conversation is better saved for the barracks, but Thire is walking a little slow, angled a little more towards Fox than usual, irregularities that have him on edge even before Thire says, “Do we need to push out a regs update?”

There’d been changes to protocols as they’d adapted from the neatness of sims to the reality of war, and there were always a few men who didn’t bother to read updates to the guidance and just waited for their commanding officers to scold them into shape. But there’s been nothing recent but a few of the regular phrasing tweaks which have no impact on the men other than encouraging the habit of dismissing the notifications of changes as pointless. And even if there were, Thire wouldn’t need Fox’s approval for a task that could easily be managed by any officer without command involvement.

Something is wrong here, and Thire isn’t willing to wait until they have privacy to raise it.

Fox pauses, turns in place, and Thire looks him in the eyes with a frown.

Dead in the eyes.

Years of experience have taught them all how to convey themselves even when so many subtleties of expression were masked by armour, their own forms of body language and expression to compensate for the barrier between them, so much contact blocked by visors on both sides.

But Thire has none of the usual difficulty, because Fox’s helmet is tucked under his arm.

It’s a breach of at least four different lines of the GAR on duty uniform code, as well as his own personal rules for Guards anywhere outside of their own barracks. Too many brothers have made their faces their own, and, while Fox doesn’t begrudge them that, it’s not something he wants them exposing to the world. They might not be up against battle droids here but they’re also short on friends, and, when a senator makes a complaint, it’s far easier if Fox can nod and agree to their demands to have Corporal Jehaat reassigned to the front lines and leave the rosters unchanged, secure that without ever having seen the man under the helmet the senators will believe their petty tyrannies acquiesced to and feel no need to push for more power over the Guard’s operation.

His own rank means, even without customization, his uniform is not a shield from recognition, but Fox has never been a hypocrite. If his men have to spend 16-hour days breathing in stale, filtered air, so will he.

So why is he standing not just in public but in the senate dome, with his face in full view?

His arm tenses, but he fights the urge to pull the bucket back on. To do so would reveal that this was an error not a deliberate choice.

Breathe. One, two. Turn. Walk again in standard time. Thire won’t question further. Not here, not out in the open. It will take four minutes to reach their offices, time enough for Fox to prepare an answer to the unspoken question.

But Fox’s mind is as empty as the helmet resting against his hip plate.

He does not do this. He has never done this. Two years serving in the Guard, and he has never allowed himself to go in public without his helmet. To do so is a betrayal of all the men under his command, a mockery of the freedoms they surrender in the hopes of navigating the senate with enough finesse that the politicians might offer some consideration to their brothers, to all of them after the war. And he wears his helmet to stay CC-1010, because all of the discipline in the world couldn’t hide the way Fox ached at being able to provide no more aid to his brothers than serving as an honour guard for beings who just this week had ordered another hundred thousand clones, expecting the war to continue long enough for them to grow, although they’d no doubt be rushed to the front lines even younger and less prepared than the current batches, while the Kaminoans hum and take notes on all the ways relying on flash training fails to hold up on the front.

He’s come from the Chancellor's office. Some days it feels like Fox spends more time dealing with the man than even his personal security staff. He takes such a close interest in the goings on of the Republic, so devoted to his duties that he never seems to take time to himself, and that extends to requesting weekly, if not more frequent, personal reports on the work of the Coruscant Guard. There is a pattern to those meetings, the Chancellor offers Fox a seat, invites him to remove his helmet and partake in some beverage or delicacy that would never be found in the clone barracks refectory, insisting that it’s the least he can do to show his appreciation for the services rendered to him. But the Chancellor is hardly the first to offer such civilities, for every senator who despises clones there’s another who would curry favour with the Guard (and sometimes they’re one in the same) and every time before Fox has cited code and maintained his discipline, cutting through the attempts at polite chit-chat as briskly as was possible without seeming insubordinate, before making his report as efficiently as he was able.

But not this time.

He tries to replay the meeting in his mind, but there’s no moment of impulsive decision making, he hadn’t even realised what he’d done until Thire pointed it out. What madness could have inspired it? The next thing he knew he’d be resting the weight of his armour on the office’s spindly chairs, accepting the Chancellor’s offers of luxuries Fox’s brothers will die without ever knowing.

It’s absurd.

It’s abhorrent.

But there’s the taste of something sweet on his tongue.

Fox turns, stepping into a service corridor.

“Our discussion will have to wait, Commander Thire,” he says. “I’ve just remembered an urgent meeting with Commissioner Divo regarding our traffic prioritisation.”

The lie is transparent.

Fox wouldn’t have forgotten a meeting. Just like he never took off his helmet on duty. Moreover, he never scheduled anybody after his sessions with the Chancellor, because it was impossible to predict when the man would run long, keeping Fox in his office for hours even though he never recalled the man having anything meaningful to say about the work of the guard.

The tilt of Thire’s helmet says he sees straight through Fox. How can he not, when Fox is bare faced?

Uncomprehending eyes stare from Thire’s visor, questioning, accusing, but there is no answer Fox can give to his own damning reflection.


End file.
